Santorum complains it isn't easy being him

Thursday

Mar 29, 2012 at 12:01 AMMar 29, 2012 at 8:03 PM

Rick Santorum complains that GOP presidential rival Mitt Romney and his allies are outspending him. He laments that he doesn't have as beefy an organization as Romney. He insists Romney is trying to change the rules of the campaign in the middle of it, and is running unfair ads. It apparently isn't easy being Santorum - and he's telling everyone who'll listen.

Rick Santorum complains that GOP presidential rival Mitt Romney and his allies are outspending him. He laments that he doesn't have as beefy an organization as Romney. He insists Romney is trying to change the rules of the campaign in the middle of it, and is running unfair ads.

"I'm not complaining. I'm not going to be whining about this," Santorum insists.

Yet lately, as the party's nomination slips further out of his reach, Santorum has seemed to do just that. He has peppered his remarks with what he considers to be the injustices and inconveniences of being the unlikely challenger in the Republican presidential fight.

It may be part ploy. The public tends to love an underdog, and Santorum often plays to that notion.

It also may be a side effect of fatigue and frustration as the GOP race heads toward its fourth month and Santorum refuses to drop out despite badly trailing Romney in the hunt for delegates to the party's nominating convention in August.

Or, as the case has been for nearly every presidential candidate at one point or another, it may just be Santorum longing for a simpler time when he wasn't always in the media spotlight.

In recent days, the former Pennsylvania senator has almost seemed to bow to the reality of the increasingly uphill fight facing him. He has floated the notion that he'd accept a vice presidential slot from Romney - although he's said Romney is the worst Republican to run against President Barack Obama.

Whatever is fueling Santorum's gripes, his willingness to publicly share what he sees as the hardships of running for president as a long-shot candidate on a shoestring budget sheds light on his personality and, perhaps, how he'd behave during dark days in the Oval Office.

Even in victory, he has complained.

"If I'm the winner by that big of a margin, why am I not on TV?" Santorum asked of no one in particular last Saturday after Louisiana's primary as he stood near a shuffleboard table and watched Romney's wife, Ann, being interviewed on CNN.

Presidential campaigns are tough even for candidates with the infrastructure to support their travel, coordinate their schedules and pay for TV ads.

Santorum doesn't have that. Sometimes he's prideful of it, but appears frustrated at other times.

"No teleprompters. No pollsters, right? No pollsters. No speechwriters," he griped in Sheboygan.

He can't keep pace with Romney's television advertising and that financial disadvantage sometimes becomes the stuff of self-pity.

"Twenty-one-to-1. That's what we were outspent," Santorum lamented after this month's Illinois primary, even though the ratio was more like 7-1.

He has at times likened the primary fight to "being sort of the David and Goliath figure here, going out here and going up against the big guys with the big money." He also has claimed, without offering anything to back it up, that Romney isn't running an above-board campaign.

"Gov. Romney is out there trying to spin this thing because he's not been able to win this on the battlefield. He's trying to win it by changing the whole rules of the game. We're going to keep playing," Santorum said in Mobile, Ala.

In person and in fundraising appeals, he often casts the campaign as besieged by elites and now, too, the news media.

Santorum recently complained about the reporters who've been covering his campaign. "They're all trying to go home, get off the road and stop writing about this thing. They're all tired. They're sick of writing the stories. They want this thing to be over. I get it," he said in Bellevue, Wis.

Then, he added: "I've been on the road too. Since June 1 of this year, I've been home for complete days for five whole days. Two for Thanksgiving and three for Christmas. I'm tired, too.

It showed when he swore at a reporter for The New York Times. Yet, he tried to turn that incident into a fundraising appeal, too, incorrectly claiming that he was goaded by the reporter.

That take-pity-on-me pitch may be working - to a point. Santorum raised $9 million in February despite losing four of the seven contests that month. He remains far behind Romney in convention delegates, with 273 to Romney's 568.

Days ago in Franksville, Wis., Santorum talked about tough times on the trail and said he'd rather be home where he could "make a little money and tend to my own garden and take care of my family and friends."

With Romney apparently on his way to the nomination, Santorum's wish could soon come true.

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